


Robin Hood

by KingHippiedude (missreader)



Series: The Avengers Are Actually a Parents-of-Trans-Kids Support Group [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Multi, Trans, Trans Character, Transgender, gender questioning, transgender character, transvengers, transvengers assemble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-04-14 18:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4575486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missreader/pseuds/KingHippiedude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Coulson's part of the story. They decide to adopt and choose a kid with a few issues with gender.</p>
<p>You do not need to have read any of the other fics in the series for this one to make sense. They will eventually weave together haphazardly, but they are not really in any kind of chronological order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Phil and Clint were one of the first couples to marry after New York legalized same-sex unions. It was just a small courthouse ceremony with a couple of their close friends as witnesses. But they didn’t need anything bigger. It just wasn’t them, and getting married didn’t change anything about their relationship. They had already been together for years, living together for most of that time.

And now they were standing here at an adoption agency event, preparing to start a family. They had already been approved and were here today to meet some of the children at one of the local group homes. All the children and prospective parents were milling about on the lawn. Well, most of them. Phil had been about to join the crowd when Clint had elbowed him gently and directed his attention to the older kids on the outskirts of the group saying, “people don’t usually want to adopt the older kids.”

Phil looked at his husband and recognized that this was important to Clint. He knew that Clint was remembering his own childhood, spent being shunted from group home to foster care to group home.

“Okay, let’s talk to the older kids then,” Phil replied.

A small smile graced Clint’s features, and he began to lead the way towards the far side of the lawn.

Some of the oldest kids, who looked to be in their teens, seemed to be chatting away pretty happily and playing some kind of card game. But Phil saw a young girl sitting alone in a shadowy corner. She looked like she was maybe ten or eleven, and her dress was wrinkled and dirty from where she had been sitting on the ground. As they approached, she looked up, and Phil could see the tell-tale signs of tears even from a relative distance. She looked angry and hurt.

“Hello, my name is Phil. What’s yours?” Phil asked, sitting down near the girl.

“Marion,” she said, somehow both shyly and angrily.

“It’s nice to meet you, Marion. That’s a lovely name. Just like Robin Hood’s friend, Maid Marian.”

Marion glared angrily.

“You don’t like your name?”

“Everybody always says I’m like Maid Marian, but I want to be Robin Hood,” she responded firmly.

“I wanted to be Robin Hood when I was your age too,” Clint said, speaking to Marion for the first time. “He was my favorite hero, so I learned how to use a bow and arrow.”

“Wow. That’s so cool. Could you teach me?”

“Sure, kid. I can try and make that happen.”

Marion got up then and ran off, disappearing into the building. But she reappeared a minute later holding a toy bow and arrow, smile on her face.

“Hello, Robin. I guess you want to get started on those archery lessons now,” Clint said with a smile.

She nodded enthusiastically in reply and attempted to shoot. But the bow and arrow both were poorly crafted, and she was in too much of a rush, so the arrow flopped to the ground mere feet away.

Clint picked it up and moved to stand beside Marion. “Let’s try again. Slower this time.”

He showed her how to nock the arrow properly and guided her arm as she drew. The arrow still didn’t fly far or in a straight line, but it made it about fifteen feet, and Marion clapped and cheered, rushing to get the arrow so she could try again.

Phil sat contentedly nearby, watching his husband play with the young girl until they had to go. And when they were forced to leave, Clint and Marion parted with a hug and a promise--on Clint’s part--to return soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and all subsequent chapters posted tonight are still a little rough and may be edited in the future. I'm just trying to get everything I wrote for the Transvengers Initiative posted before the end of the year.

The first Halloween after they had adopted Marion, Clint and Phil argued about costumes. Marion, of course, would be dressing up, and Clint insisted that he and Phil wear costumes too, preferably matching family costumes. Phil insisted that he would not wear a costume and would prefer to stay at home to hand out candy. In the end, Phil won the argument, but only because he needed to be working from home most of the evening.

Rather than buy cheap mass-produced costumes from the store, Clint insisted that they would make their own. He was quite talented with a sewing machine, and soon enough Marion had a Robin Hood costume, complete with fox tail and ears (they went with the Disney version, of course). And Clint was the Little John to her Robin Hood.

Marion looked absolutely adorable and was thrilled with her costume, and everyone in the neighborhood thought it was the cutest thing ever.

With her short hair mostly hidden by her hat, she looked ambiguously androgynous, being prepubescent. Those who didn’t recognize her often referred to her as a boy, and Marion didn’t correct them. In fact, she smiled a bit and seemed to enjoy being perceived as a boy in a way she never seemed to like being reminded of her femaleness. That was when Clint first began to consider that maybe there was something more at play here than Marion just being a tomboy.

Late at night, after they had tucked Marion into bed, Clint told Phil about what he had noticed while trick-or-treating. Marion seemed to be having some kind of gender identity issues. Maybe it was just a phase and it would pass, or maybe it was just that she was a very tomboyish sort of girl. But maybe there really was something more going on. She had demonstrated a pointed dislike of anything feminine in association to herself since before they had adopted her.

“I think we should take her to see someone, Phil,” Clint said. “I don’t think this is something we can deal with on our own. I don’t know anything about gender issues.”

“I’ll look into it tomorrow,” Phil replied. “For right now, let’s just go to bed.”

And so the next day, Phil began to search Google for anything that might help. Most of the advice was geared towards teens and adults and wasn’t practical (or sometimes even possible) when the person in question was as young as Marion. But eventually, he found a child psychologist who looked vaguely promising and had something on her site about feminism and gender. There wasn’t much information on the woman that Phil could find, but he made an appointment and hoped this was what they needed.

Also in his searches he took note of another bit of contact information that he found. This was for a parents-of-trans-kids support network through scientist/activist Bruce Banner (a local New York resident, apparently) with a group that met every week or two. It was probably too early to say much about Marion’s eventual gender identity, but it might be a good resource for Phil and Clint. And if she got to meet some of the other kids, it might give Marion a place to explore or simply be herself without judgement. So Phil wrote down the contact info and tucked it away in his notebook to share with Clint later.


	3. Chapter 3

The child psychologist was absolutely horrid. She spent the meeting alternately speaking _to_ Marion as if she were a four year old and to Phil and Clint _about_ Marion as if she weren’t sitting right next to them. And at the end of the appointment, she finally suggested that Marion simply needed to be shown that women could be strong and independent too and that she was suffering from lack of a maternal figure. She babbled about how women don’t have to be feminine and that being feminine isn’t weak. And she cast aspersions on all gay couples’ fitness and ability to parent, especially Phil and Clint since neither of them seemed to play the role of ‘woman’ in the relationship. ( _That’s the point_ , Clint wanted to yell at her. _The point of being a gay man in a relationship with another gay man is that there IS NO WOMAN!_ )

After they left, barely suppressing the desire to storm out in a fit of rage, Phil called the number for the support group. They had a meeting that night, and after taking some contact info, the person on the other end of the line said they would email him the details shortly, before hanging up.

The email arrived just minutes after they got home, and Phil was surprised to see that the meeting place was in Stark Tower. It was quite an intimidating structure, but apparently it was chosen for privacy’s sake, and Phil couldn’t argue with that. Stark Tower had the best security in the city.

After a quick check with Clint, Phil replied to the email to confirm their attendance. And they discussed the meeting with Marion and asked if she would like to go. In the end, she agreed simply because she didn’t want to have a babysitter, but they were grateful that she hadn’t said no. They thought this might be good for her.

Despite the location, Clint and Phil were still both shocked when the elevator doors opened to reveal Tony Stark himself greeting them and welcome them into his penthouse apartment.

***

Phil wasn’t sure how Clint and Marion felt about the support group, but he found it very useful indeed. After Marion had joined the other kids (who were really all more like teens) in a different room, Phil recounted their horrible morning with the psychologist. Everyone was pleasantly outraged and sympathetic, and Tony threatened to have her killed. (Phil was fairly certain that he wasn’t serious, but he still did his best to derail any plotting Tony might have been doing.) Bruce was probably the most knowledgeable and helpful of the group, but they all offered advice and support. Apparently they had all had similar experiences.

Phil and Clint left armed with the number for a therapist who came highly recommended, though he usually dealt with older patients, and Marion actually seemed a little happier too. They couldn’t be totally sure because she didn’t say anything to them and went straight to bed when they got home, but she had seemed lighter and was no longer constantly on the verge of tears.

***

The first time Clint and Phil met Tony Stark, they were a little in awe of the billionaire. After all, he was pretty much the richest man on Earth and a genius besides. Phil got over it pretty quickly. Tony could be annoying as hell when he wasn’t in front of the press--and sometimes when he was. He was actually just a person, a father, a human being.

Phil never really stopped being annoyed with Tony, but once Clint got over his awe, the two became good friends. They had a similar childish sense of humor and Tony was ridiculously impressed with Clint’s archery skills and entertained by the fact that he had once worked for a circus. The others began to fear what would happen when Clint and Tony were left alone together too long.

For Tony’s part, he was tired of people always being overly awed by his wealth for making judgements about him based on the press without ever speaking to him. So when Clint became his friend it was the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae that was the support group. For someone who had been a lone wolf and a single parent for so long, suddenly having a group of friends who saw him as a real person was a breath of fresh air. Suddenly, Tony didn’t have to do everything alone. He had people who he could call, crying, in the middle of the night (which happened more often than he liked to admit, though Pepper was usually the one on the receiving end of those calls) and know he could trust.


	4. Chapter 4

“Good morning, Marion,” Phil said as she entered the kitchen one Saturday, not much later.

Marion frowned a bit but responded with a “good morning.”

Clint saw her frown and asked, “You really don’t like that name, do you?”

She shook her head furiously.

“Well, we could call you by a different name if you like. Is there something you had in mind?” Phil asked.

“Robin,” she answered immediately. “Like Robin Hood.”

Clint grinned widely and Phil asked, “you sure you want to name yourself after a fictional character?”

“Robin isn’t just the name of a fictional character. It’s Robin Williams’s name too, and he’s really cool. But not as cool as Robin Hood. Robin Hood is awesome, and everybody always says my name is like the lady from the Robin Hood story anyways,” she said with an exaggerated pout.

Clint and Phil couldn’t argue with that. “Okay then, Robin,” Phil said. “What would you like for breakfast?”


	5. Chapter 5

Clint and Phil were at the therapist’s office with ~~Marion~~ Robin. They were waiting for her (… _his?_ Clint wondered; Robin still hadn’t said for sure) appointment to finish. Sometimes they sat in on the appointments, but sometimes Robin felt more comfortable without them in the room, and she was old enough and they knew the therapist well enough for her to be left alone with him for a bit. They were right outside the door, after all.

The door creaked open, and Robin appeared, the therapist right behind. There were tears on Robin’s face and she was sniffling a bit. So Clint immediately scooped her into his arms (she was getting a little big to be picked up like that, but Clint was impressively strong, so it wasn’t really a problem) and carried her outside while Phil spoke to the doctor.

Clint wasn’t quite sure what to do, but he figured trying to calm Robin and cheer her up a little was probably a good place to start. So, he set her down and asked her, “Would you like some ice cream?”

She nodded and sniffled a bit more.

“Alright. Let’s clean you up a bit,” he said, pulling out a tissue for her to blow her nose and wipe her tears away. And once that was done he led her around the corner to a nearby ice cream shop, updating Phil via text as they went. He figured he would find out what happened soon enough.

Robin got a cup of something chocolatey with a strange name, and Clint got a cone of chocolate-covered bacon flavored ice cream for himself (he always liked to try new things) and a cup of mint chocolate chip for Phil. They were sitting at a table by the window when Phil arrived and joined them.

“Are you alright, Robin?” he asked as he sat down.

She started to nod, then paused and shook her head. “He told me I was probly just a girl who didn’t like girly things because I ‘don’t feel like a boy trapped in the wrong body’ since I don’t want a penis,” she said, seeming to carefully recall the therapist’s exact words to her. “And he’s a doctor, so I guess he’s right, but I don’t want to grow boobies or wear dresses. I don’t want to be a girl! But I don’t want to be a boy either!” She was getting upset again, and Clint leaned over to reach his arm around her in a half-hug.

“I know we’ve always told you that honesty is the best policy, but the doctor can’t do anything to make you not a girl unless you tell him you feel like a boy,” Phil said, having done some research on the complexities of gender transition.

“But that’s lying!” Robin said.

“I know, sweetie. But sometimes we have to lie to do the right thing,” Phil replied. “Let’s forget this for now, and we can talk about options later, okay?”

And with that, the conversation ended. For the time being.


End file.
